Purple
by Twilight Hours
Summary: Castiel thinks about things. Season 5.


Purple. It is a powerful color. To humans, at least, and he thinks other beings too. Maybe even angels. There are many meanings and symbols for purple. The most commonly known ones are royalty, and magic.

He has read books. Definitely the Bible, some other religious books. The Qur'an, Tanakh, Torah, principles of Tao and Buddhism and even Confucianism. Supernatural.

His vessel, Jimmy, read less mainstream religious things; interviews, articles, sermons. He's read a handful of classics as well. Hemingway, Thurber, Emerson, The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Fahrenheit 451.

Jimmy's read them, so he's read them too.

After Jimmy, he's also read some... different books. From Sam and Dean. Most of them are Sam's. He's seen ones that Jimmy read in Sam's duffle sometimes— To Kill a Mockingbird, The Shining, Things Fall Apart. There are more obscure books too, books that he's not sure Dean knows about. And of course, there are a lot of lore books.

Dean's collection is more sparse. He's got a decent one from time to time, making Castiel wonder if the hunter just acts cruder than he really is. But mostly there are the kinds he expects Dean to have: car magazines, porn magazines, and some moderately sized pamphlets he's _sure _Sam does not know about, and does not want to know about.

Some of the Winchesters' books he reads, some he doesn't.

He likes books, though.

They seem to 'open the soul' more than other things do, reveal thoughts and emotions and psychological tendencies in humans that prove helpful to him. He becomes engrossed in words, he finds himself in the minds of the writers and readers. Almost exactly, but it's more a human feeling. He can't describe it.

If he hadn't the responsibility of Heaven, he'd write a book on the lives of all the humans, individually, intimately. Like Supernatural, he'd write down the paths of seemingly insignificant beings, see if he can connect them in some paramount web. See if it will make him fully understand them, see if it will make his brothers and sisters fully understand.

There are a lot of things about humans that have never been put into books.

Being possessed by a demon is like having a burnt corner of yourself, or being coated with a thin layer of gasoline. The demon, upon entering your body, shares the same space your soul does, a space meant only for your soul. In turn, the soul and demonic essence overlap; the soul becomes tainted, however temporary for most. Like water and oil— separate, but in the same container it does not make much difference.

Being a vessel, possessed by an angel, is described as... holding on to a comet. It is powerful and dangerous and reckless, if he goes by what Jimmy tells him.

The reason people more often than not end up mentally unstable after the angel has left them is because they become a shell— quite literally. After having a being of that magnitude inside of you, you feel completely empty without it. An angel extends and pulls that space in your body and the longer they stay or the more powerful the angel, the stronger the pull. Once they leave, the space remains massive, like a stretched out sweater after lending it to someone a hundred sizes larger than you. What was once a perfect fit for one soul, is now a vacuum sometimes bigger than a universe. Single souls cannot cope with that much space. Not very often can they shrink it back to its former size. Not very often can they learn to handle the enormous amount of room.

Being an angel inside a vessel is a different experience.

In some ways, it is harder to explain. It's many things. Fitting inside such a small space is many things. While pushing against that barrier containing one essence and making it large enough to fit you as well is one thing; fitting inside the _body _is another. The extent of flesh, muscle, mortal kinetic movement, human speed and range of motion and even speech, is lacking— to understate tremendously. Angels are not used to constraint, limitation, confinement. (All angels but one.) It is reasonable to state that a being the size of the Chrysler building inside a human feels... cramped.

It's like wearing that sweater borrowed from someone a hundred sizes smaller than you. It's like putting on shoes a hundred times too small—and wearing them out in the rain. The space stretches and molds around your form, but it's still uncomfortably tight and awkward and _wet. _It's crunching up your wings just to fit them in a jet plane. And though some characteristics can be manipulated— strength, the capabilities of flight— his divine abilities would be much easier to use and his performance much better quality without a vessel.

Odd, however, that many of an angel's skills are not practical or even possible to utilize without the exploitation of the physical state. Strength is not something Castiel has ever been able to employ in Heaven, nor has it been something he has needed to utilize off of Earth, and yet the only time it proves useful, it feels constricted and _not enough_. It is frustrating, to say the least, to never know what the full extent of his powers feels like. A thirst one can never fully satisfy.

Luckily for Castiel, flight doesn't bring him the same dissatisfaction.

Being sent from the edge of the universe and back in a split second is different from a human perspective. Vessels barely see anything at all. Angels see double.

He's slightly overwhelmed, every time he closes Jimmy's eyes and opens them again. There's Jimmy's sight— slightly unsaturated, uncontrasted, cubic and solid and real. And there's his— overlapping Jimmy's, it puts a phosphorescent glow to everything. Sometimes his vision shifts, and he is only seeing Jimmy's vision, or he is only seeing his own.

He thinks it is beautiful.

It gives Jimmy a headache.

Often he wonders what Jimmy thinks about the things he experiences with Castiel. It is difficult to communicate with the man, as his soul is generally too overwhelmed or drowned in Castiel's grace to register Castiel's thoughts let alone respond to them, but Castiel can occasionally pick up on the feelings and impressions Jimmy has. Every now and then, comprehensive thoughts. They are less pious than they were before Castiel possessed him.

Castiel wants to understand humans better, and through that he tries to understand Jimmy, but usually all he can get from Jimmy is a sense of disorientation. Especially when Castiel leaves the earthly plane— his vessel is mostly incapable of comprehending things beyond his own bodily senses, and even if he weren't, his desire to be so wanes each day.

Sometimes, when he is feeling less busy, Castiel tries to be as physical as possible, sits down on a park bench and gives Jimmy a chance to feel nothing but the relaxation of just being, while the angel ponders upon the fragility of human kind. Even though crunching himself down to five physical senses is disadvantageous to his own form, he feels a pensive humility arise from it.

He spends most of his time, when not thinking about his father, thinking about humans and life as when sitting on park benches.

He does not imagine himself to be an ambitious angel like some of his brothers and sisters are.

However, he doesn't believe he's too naive about things. He knows not all of his garrison is as innocent as he; Lucifer was not a sole exception to the lack of corruption within grace. He knows some of his brethren are _too _ambitious. He would bring up the tale of Icarus to a few chosen individuals, if it were not lost to them or an inappropriate violation of authority on his part. Nevertheless, he performs his duties and follows his path with an encompassing amount of faith. It's not his duty to question.

In addition, he need not question God's directions when looking at the life around him.

When he can't help himself, on a park bench overlooking humankind, he allows himself to see beyond Jimmy's sight, into a plane where he can peer at the souls of the children on the playgrounds and the parents hovering in the grass.

Souls are peculiar things, much different from the grace of an angel yet oddly similar. They're much harder for Castiel to wrap his mind around as opposed to his hands (Jimmy's hands). Materially, in a sense, he is able to handle souls with ease if he so wished; to touch, probe, carry, contain— it is like picking up the fragment of a star, if not for the considerable difference in temperature and composition. That, and Castiel has no need to deal with gaseous substances. Both actions however are near effortless, though the handling of a soul is far less complicated than understanding it. He has an odd yearning to find out the workings of the human soul, the meaning and origins of the feelings and sensations that emanate from it, yet his lack of knowledge creates an even deeper sense of admiration and awe for his father and his creations.

So he merely looks. He doesn't even gaze into the souls' depths, just observes the surface as balls of light bursting inside each human. It is comparable with the human's interpretation of auras: each soul different colors and shades, ever changing but ever consistent with whomever the soul occupies. They range from basic hues to colors naked to an Earth-dweller's eye. A young girl on the slide a pacifying navy, her father a bright lime. Everyone different.

He watches Sam and Dean often parallel to watching the figures around a park. Their souls shine as bright as anyone else's, but always stand out to Castiel. He's not entirely certain as to why.

Their souls operate strangely, almost complementing each other, though sometimes they change to look opposite enough that one would almost miss the connection between them. Though they range throughout the entire color spectrum, Castiel sees their souls most often as forms of red and blue. Sometimes Sam as a calming blue and Dean a fiery red, sometimes the other way around. Lately, it has been the other way around. Though Dean's red is never the same as Sam's red, and vice versa— somehow they are rarely ever the same hue. There is always a balance with the Winchesters.

Lately, Dean's soul radiates blues, and he has been cold and distant, ever-constant doubt with an underlying hint of despair. Understandable, considering their current circumstances, yet Sam's remains tones of red, and he often emits warmth and compassion. Small doses of encouragement and hope. There is, much like his brother, a deep sorrow that is not generally associated with red, but Castiel has learned that Sam is inherently troubled and all choose to ignore it, including Sam himself. (It is as consistent as his faith— and prayers, which Castiel is prone to listen to and somewhat forcedly averse to answer.) No, Sam is red now because he feels, as he has always felt, the compulsion to balance his brother. Both subconsciously do it, have done it since they were first brought together. It is not uncommon for people to modify themselves when around others; it is rare to implement it so intrinsically.

Sam and Dean are close in proximity very frequently. It is the result of traveling together and hunting together, with the addition of being siblings. It is also the result of a shared accumulation of very singular experiences.

Their souls, furthermore, do a very singular thing.

It was almost easily missed the first time Castiel met both Sam and Dean together and looked in at their souls. He didn't glance back, almost, because it seemed so natural, fluid. Because Sam and Dean are so connected, it didn't seem out of place when the angel only saw one soul.

It wasn't exactly _one soul_, though— their essences are always very distinct and separate. Yet the bond between them warped Castiel's sight to where he saw the souls mixed together. He thinks he understands how Jimmy feels when he witnesses things outside the substantial realm that he cannot comprehend. It's very disorienting. So independently red, and then blue, like blood and spirit, but so thoroughly _purple_.

It throbs amongst everything whenever Castiel flies over to see them. There are days where it's faint, or not there at all, but more often than not the two hunters are shrouded in violet. Castiel stares very often, tries to wrap his mind around the concept, and usually just gets a sharp remark from one of them. The colors and light shift.

Purple. A color of magic, of miraculous happenings and unexpected faith. Of a very, very special lineage combed with angelic foresight and preordained plans and an unforeseen devotion. Loyalty.

It is a powerful color indeed— much like the Winchesters.


End file.
